Special Offer Golden Gate Blue Golden Gate Blue $1300 Buy Now
Catalog
Voting poll

What do You most appreciate on this store?

Tell a Friend
Payment Instructions
Newsletters

Lawmakers Scramble To Resolve Tobacco Issue

By BRIAN DUGGAN Bismarck Tribune

The brouhaha over the anti-smoking cigarettes Measure 3 continued Friday while lawmakers looked for ways to come to a compromise and a proposed constitutional amendment sold as an alternative to the voter-approved ballot initiative got another legislative makeover.

Meanwhile, the nine-member advisory committee established by Measure 3 decided on Friday that they would pursue legal action if the Legislature did not fund the initiatives established under the law that promotes online cigarettes cessation, which passed with 54 percent of the vote in November.

"What this would do is prepare us for future action if it's needed," said Kathy Mangskau, who chairs the anti-smoking cigarettes executive panel.

The problem over Measure 3, which would increase tobacco cessation efforts in North Dakota, started last month when House Republicans nixed the executive committee established by the measure and instead pushed to send a new wave of tobacco settlement dollars to the Department of Health. Without Democratic support, the bill failed.

Since then, the funding for Measure 3 has been in limbo, prompting Sen. John Andrist, R-Crosby, to propose a constitutional amendment to ask voters to create a new public health care trust fund with the money that would otherwise be used on the executive committee established by Measure 3.

Andrist's amendment, however, got an unannounced makeover by the House Constitutional Revision Committee late Thursday. Lawmakers rewrote the amendment into one that asks voters to ban the use of taxpayer dollars on political campaigns, a measure supported by the committee chairman and the House, but not by the Senate.

On Friday morning, the committee met and quickly undid the changes they made the prior day. The committee then gave the amendment a "do not pass" recommendation.

The chairman of the committee, Rep. Kim Koppelman, R-West Fargo, said he took responsibility for maneuver, adding the changes made to the amendment on Thursday, proposed by Reps. Lisa Meier, R-Bismarck, and Mike Schatz, R-New England, were "legitimate legislative functions."

On Friday, Schatz said it was his idea to change the amendment to its original language. Meier and Schatz said House leadership did not direct them to do so.

Rep. Jasper Schneider, D-Fargo, who sits on the committee, said he was "embarrassed" by the panel's actions over the Andrist amendment.

Andrist sent two e-mails to the entire House Thursday night telling them to, "Kill the d--- bill if you want, or table it, or hide it in the cafeteria - anything that will spare us this stupidity."

On Friday morning after House lawmakers changed his amendment back to its original language, Andrist said he was pleased, adding, "Sometimes we say things hastily, a little bit tongue in cheek, and in anger. It happens.

"The thing I regret is I was laying the blame on the leadership and I think the right leap was probably placed on the chairman of the committee who I thought was trying to do something cute," Andrist said. "I suspect by now he maybe regrets it, too."

Two sets of drafted amendments were circulating among lawmakers on Friday.

Both would re-establish the executive committee established by Measure 3 and would be added to the Department of Health budget.

One of those amendments, drafted by House Majority Leader Al Carlson, R-Fargo, would still send the tobacco settlement dollars to the Department of Health, but would give the executive committee more oversight of the funds, said Rep. Lee Kaldor, D-Mayville, who has reviewed the legislation. Sen. Tim Mathern, D-Fargo, was also drafting amendments late Friday. He said he did not want to share details until other lawmakers review his legislation.

Other cigarettes news and tobacco market events you can find at links bellow:

   • Cheap Cigarettes News

   • Discount Cigarettes & Tobacco News

   • Discount-Cigarettes-Planet.Com Cigarettes News





The term cigarettes, as normally employed, refers to a tobacco cigarette, but can be utilized like devices holding in other herbaceous plants, such as eugenia caryophyllatums. A cigarette is differentiated from a cigar by its modest sizing, utilization of treated leafage, and paper wrap, which is usually white hot, though other coloring materials are sometimes usable. Cigars are mostly compiled totally of whole-leaf tobacco plant.

Rates of cheap smokes changes widely, and have altered substantially over the course of human history since cigarettes were 1st wide used in the mid-19th century. While rates of smoke have over time leveled off or turned down in the highly developed world, they continue to up-rise in evolving states. Nicotine, the main psychotropic chemical substance in baccy and therefore cigarettes, has been shown to be psychologically habit forming, although it does not generate a physiologic addiction.

Cheap cigarettes usage by pregnant women has also been shown to stimulate birth defects, including mental and physical disabilities.